Annabeth's Childhood Memories
by annabethchased
Summary: Annabeth reflects on her difficult childhood and her strained relationship with her father, step-mother and step-brothers. She discovers how this has made her the person she is today.


**Annabeth's Childhood memories**

**Chapter 1**

**Annabeth's POV**

As I walked to the Aphrodite cabin to find Piper my mind wondered back to my childhood. I thought of all the emotions and pain I went through as a young child and how ultimately, it made me the person I am today.

It all started when I was a newborn baby, which I obviously can't remember but I am smart enough to figure this is where it all began. My father had just finished college. He was young, full of excitement and had his whole life ahead of him until one day he opened the front door to find an unwanted, unplanned and unexpected baby on the front porch. He saw that it was a gift from Athena and immediately contacted her and begged her to take me back. He pleaded with her saying that he had his life planned out and a baby, especially a demigod baby, didn't fit into it. He was so young and knew nothing about babies; he couldn't care for one on his own!

Athena was outraged by my father's pleading and angrily explained that the mortal parent had to take care of the demigod child and that this is the ultimate gift from Athena. She left him some basic supplies and a small amount of money and returned to Olympus.

My father must have resented me then and as I grew for many reasons. I was and am a constant reminder of my mother and his love for her that will never come to anything, I am a threat to his new mortal family and he must resent me for how much inconvenience him.

When I was around four my father introduced me to the woman who is now my step-mother. When she first met me she looked at me like I was a massive annoyance to her life. Well, she still looks at me like that. She spoke down to me the way most adults speak down to children, like they are some stupid being from another planet. She failed to notice I was reading a college level architecture book and had way above average intelligence. I still remember her shocked face when I answered her stupid questions in full sentences and spoke like I was fourteen rather than four. I could tell, even from that young age, that this threatened and frightened her.

My father must have told her what I actually was sometime while they were engaged. After she found out she looked at me like I was something to leave out with the garbage but I know that she was really terrified of me. She was terrified of me because I threatened her way of life. She was also terrified of me because I reminded my father of Athena, whom she saw as a threat.

When the day of their wedding arrived, my father took me to one side and told me very sternly that I was to not mess anything up and that he would never forgive me if something went wrong. The wedding was over pretty quickly and without issue but when photo time came around things went quickly downhill. It was time for the family portrait of me, my father and my step-mother. We stepped into the photo area and we were told to smile and look happy. Easy for them, but for five year old me who was despising her life more and more by the second, I found it rather difficult. The photographer took one photo, then another, then another until finally he asked why I wasn't happy. I glared at him then burst into tears and ran out the building. My father ran after me, fuming. When he caught up with me he slapped me. He kept shouting and shouting at me asking why I couldn't be happy. I never replied. The secret was how could I be happy when I always felt so unwanted, like a toy discarded by an ungrateful child? All I knew then was that my real mother didn't want me and abandoned me in my fathers care. My father didn't want a child and I could always feel his resentment for me ebbing away at me, bubbling at the surface of his every look and word. On top of this I now had a step-mother who hated me.

When I was not far off seven years old my step-mother had the twins, Matthew and Bobby. From that moment on I was very much in the backseat. My step-mother's behaviour had worsened. She now truly saw me as some dangerous being that might get her two boys killed just because they are in my presence. Worst of all her behaviour started rubbing off on my father. As much as he resented me from the day of my arrival, I knew he loved me. After the twins arrived he started to either completely ignore me or shout out me for silly little things like knocking a glass over or catching a cold. Every night I would cry myself to sleep and wish I had never been born.

Not long after my seventh birthday (which was either ignored or forgotten about by the family as Matthew had started the crawl) the spiders started to attack. This was the final straw for me. My step-mother would yell at me for screaming and waking up the twins. She would claim that it was all imaginary as the spiders would retreat when they heard her angry footsteps thundering down the hall. In the morning I would find myself covered in spider bites and cobwebs. The bites faded before I finished getting dressed but I left the cobwebs and went downstairs to show my step-mother. She slapped me and told me not to use 'clever tricks' on her again. I cried and went upstairs to clean the cobwebs off. On the third night of spider attacks I finally had enough. Tears streaming down my face and completely exhausted from three nights of screaming, I packed some essential items in a backpack and left through the backdoor of the house. I had packed some clothes, a hairbrush, some food, water and I had taken money from my step-mothers purse. I left a note on the kitchen worktop that said:

_Dear 'family'_

_I can't take this anymore! I am fed up of feeling so unwanted and unloved. I just want to be somewhere that I will be accepted. The spiders are real._

_-Annabeth_

After I placed the note I ran into the night, trying to get as much space as I could between me and that house.

**Hi, thanks for reading! This is my first fanfiction and I really wanted to explore Annabeth's childhood as it is never really done in much detail in the original works. There will be more chapters to follow, I am just not sure when! Hopefully soon… **


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